Jack Games

New Free Game: Halloween Gems

2008-10-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

A spooky puzzle game where you move gems to match 3 in a row. Try to match as many pumpkins, ghosts, and candy corns as you can before your candle burns out. The controls make it easy to click a gem and then slide it where you want.
http://fizzual.com/files/i-hall3gem.exe

If you save your favorite Halloween song as hall3gem.mp3 to the same directory of the game it will play during the game.

New Free Game: Fishing Minnesota Series 1

2008-09-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is a fishing game where I tried to strike a balance between simulation and arcade fishing. Like real fishing, you cast your line by swinging the mouse and click to release. When you get a bite, you reel in by holding the button and moving the mouse in a circular motion. The size of the fish will determine how much of a fight they give you. The Lakes are scaled-down representations of real lakes in Minnesota.

Series 1 Lakes:
Leech Lake, Cass County
Lake Mille Lacs, Mille Lacs County
Lake Winnibigoshish, Cass County
Lake Vermilion, St. Louis County
Lake of the Woods, Lake of the Woods County
Upper Red Lake, Beltrami County

http://download.jackgames.com

Put an image named me.bmp (or gif or jpg) in the game directory to replace the fisherman with your own face.

New Free Game: Cavity Crusade - Dental Evolved

2008-08-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

A tribute to Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved where you must defend your teeth against an endless assault of plaque. Blast with your fluoride cannon using a left mouse click. Use special weapons like floss with a double click. Navigate using either a right click or the arrow keys.

http://download.jackgames.com/

Developer's Diary: The Weapons of Dental Evolved

2008-08-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

In my previous posts I have discussed how I tried to make a game similar to Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Because my game uses a mouse, and because I wanted to differentiate to some degree, I have added a special weapons/items system.

Once all the different types of plaque have had a chance to come out and put you on the run, special power-up items (creatively marked “?”) will periodically appear. Running your ship over these items will give you one of 8 random power ups. Double click to activate the power up. Some have a one time effect, others will last for about 10 seconds. Some items (like the shields and the floss shown here) can be combined. If you activate the floss while running shields, both will be activated and the shields effectivity will be renewed.

1-up: Double click for an extra life
Floss: Double click and a line of floss will be drawn from your aiming reticule to your tooth. Moving around will have the floss move with you. Anything that crosses its path is destroyed.
Two-Way: Double click and your reticule will start shooting back at you. This causes total destruction in-between you and your reticule, and also allows you to shoot behind your tooth.
Power Reticule: Double click and your aiming reticule will become a weapon. Move it over anything you want to destroy.
Shields: Double click to activate. The shields will protect you and destroy anything that touches you.
Sprinkler: Double click to leave a second tooth that will shoot a fluoride cannon in all directions.
Bomb: Double click to create a blast that destroys almost an entire screen.
Barricade: Double click to activate. For a limited time, your reticule will draw a barricade while you hold down the left mouse button. You can use this barricade to hide from plaque. Be warned – most of them cannot get through it, but you cannot shoot through it either.

If you can score more than 10,000 points, future plays will have a power-up appear at the beginning of the game.

Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved will be available at http://JackGames.com on Friday 8/29.

Developer's Diary - The Enemies of Dental Evolved

2008-08-26T19:23:00.001-07:00

The biggest thing that impressed me about Geometry Wars was the different behaviors all of the different types of enemies had. So as I developed my tribute to Geometry Wars I knew that this was a major component of the game that I wanted to mimic.

Like Retro Evolved, the enemies of Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved start small and slow and continue coming in larger numbers and with more aggressive behaviors. There are 10 types of germs (or plaque) in Dental Evolved, and each will infuriate you in different ways:

Pawns: These are the first enemies. They chase you at a medium pace.
Heatseekers: This plaque will chase your tooth quickly and aggressively. You will need to quickly direct your fire on them or they will get you.
Zombies: These plaque move slow and follow you methodically. Their slow pace often puts them just out of range of your fluoride cannons until they are too close for comfort. They also take more damage so they are dangerous if they sneak up close.
Splitters: This plaque is fairly easy to dispatch at first, but then they split into two smaller versions.
Jokers: These plaque try to gain position on you while constantly evading your shots.
Kamikazes: This plaque will simply fly directly at you at top speed. They may easily miss, but they’ll quickly change course and dart at you again,
Dumpers: They rarely attack directly, but they lay down stones that are obstacles to you and your fluoride cannons.
Sinkholes: They attack fairly slowly but when destroyed, they produce a large vortex that will destroy anything in its path.
Ghosts: They attack fairly slowly but they can fly through barriers and other obstacles ensuring there is no such thing as a total safe zone.
Snipers: They aren’t interested in attacking directly. They will shoot their germs at you and keep their distance.

There are enough enemies to fill the screen and overwhelm the player with all the different ways the plauqe will respond to you. There isn’t as much creativity or variety as in Retro Evolved but there is enough to get some of the same feel.

Thus far I have outlined how I have tried to make a game like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Dental Evolved will have some of its own features, however, namely a special weapons system. In my next post I will outline how you can upgrade your fluoride cannon or even pull out the floss to dispatch the plaque.

Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved will be available at http://JackGames.com on Friday 8/29.

Developer's Diary - Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved

2008-08-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

I am not unique in being a fan of the Geometry Wars series. Being a Nintendo devotee, I only have access to the Wii and DS versions. I rented Geometry Wars: Galaxies for the Wii and it became the first game in a long time that converted from a rental to a purchase. The Wii version has a feature that allows you to download the original retro evolved version of the game to the DS, which made it the very first Nintendo system game that converted me from a demo to another purchase for the DS version.

Having never played the X360 versions of the game, I never developed a bias for the dual stick control method; so I am one of those rare few that prefer the point to shoot method (especially for the DS). Being an aspiring game designer, I thought it would be fun to build my own take on the game using that control scheme (mouse instead of Wiimote, of course). I decided to start the project

Decisions: - I’ll use the mouse to point and shoot. I want to make it very easy to access so that it could be played with one hand. So the mouse can also move your ship. Most people should prefer the arrows or maybe a joystick to move the ship.

- I love Geometry Wars graphic style. I want to make mine similar but totally different. I decided to try to emulate the style but invert all the colors so the background is mostly white instead of black and the moving characters are filled with color with light borders.

- I decided to make it like Retro Evolved where you had one stage where you would continue to fight and the action would continue to escalate until you die. The challenge is to get the highest score. A stage based game like Galaxies adds another level of complexity that I am not ready for, not having experienced how my basic game will play.

- I decided to have power-ups like Galaxies however. I think that doing some different actions with the mouse will help differentiate this game that would otherwise be a straight knock-off.

Because my goal was to take the Geometry Wars look and invert it, I was now dealing with a white background with dark colored objects comprising the action. To me, it wouldn’t make sense for the game to be based in space with a white background, so I decided to do a throwback to a game I made long ago called Cavity Crusade (JackGames.com), a point and shoot (almost a light gun) game where you battle germs to save your teeth. Teeth are generally white, so it makes sense for this to be a mostly white setting. Combining the titles of my old game with the new one I was mimicking, I decided to call my new game Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved.

I think the thing that surprised me most about Geometry Wars was all of the varied behaviors the enemies had. In my next post I will cover the enemies of Dental Evolved.

New Free Game: Shagtrix

2008-08-18T19:20:00.001-07:00

Another falling block puzzle with a shag-a-dellic theme. Try to keep your eyes and mind straight as the colors change when you clear lines! This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads. http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: WonderDweeb Racing

2008-08-18T19:15:00.001-07:00

Choose from 8 characters from the WonderDweeb universe and race across the worlds in a galaxy far, far away. This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads. http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: Quake & Break

2008-08-15T10:49:00.001-07:00

It's like Tetris with a twist. Fit the falling block pieces together to form a line. When you do, everything starts shaking! This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads.
http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: Fuzzbusters Racing

2008-08-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

A racing quest starring the Fuzzbusters. Choose from several fuzzy Fuzzbusters and race to save your friends! Use the keyboard or joystick to steer, and collect special items to beat the competition. Find more friends hidden in secret places!
http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: Cavity Crusade

2008-08-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

Blast away plaque with your fluoride cannon. This arcade game has you using your mouse to hunt down germs in the mouth before they become problems for your teeth. This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads.

http://download.jackgames.com/

Add your own music to Pizza Puzzle

2008-08-14T17:32:00.001-07:00

You can replace the stock music in Pizza Puzzle with your own mp3's. Just take any MP3 file, and copy it to the directory in which you installed the Pizza Puzzle game (usually C:\Program Files\Jack Games\). Rename each MP3:

pizza2.mp3 will play on the title screen
pizza1.mp3 will play during the game

New Free Game: Pizza Puzzle

2008-08-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Pizza Puzzle is a puzzle game like bejewled that has you try to match 3 ingredients in a row to score. The game is very easy to play, just click once on the item you want to move and then move the mouse- the item will move with you. This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads.
http://download.jackgames.com/

More Webcam Craziness

2008-08-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Here is another video showing some Tetris dancing, as well as some sports games being played with a web cam via Physicam.

How to do the Tetris Dance!

2008-08-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Here is some video of me playing Tetrodance - my version of Tetris where you move in front of a webcam to play instead of hitting buttons. You do not actually have to dance like a 90-year old like I did here to play.

Find this game for free at http://jackgames.com

New Free Game: TetroDance

2008-08-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

This is TetroDance, a game like Tetris where you dance in front of a webcam to control the falling blocks. Swing left and right to move the blocks left and right. Point up to either turn the block or make it fall. All you need is a webcam! This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads.

http://download.jackgames.com/

How To: Create your own WordBomb Puzzles

2008-08-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Our manic word find game WordBomb comes with a set of word lists to find but also allows you to create your own. Here is how you do it:
1) Find the folder that contains the game, usually C:\Program Files\Jack Games\
2) Open the Windows application Notepad (you can click the Windows Start button, Run, then type Notepad to open it)
3) Make a list of up to 10 words using the following criteria
-Use CAPITAL letters only. No numbers, spaces, or other characters.
- Keep the words to no longer than 12 letters.
4) Have an 11th line in the file (press return after the 10th line) that is blank
5) Save the file as x.wordbomb where x = the name of your puzzle.
6) Play WordBomb and enjoy your puzzle! You can use Notepad to open any of the existing .wordbomb files if you want to copy how they are formatted.

New Free Game: WordBomb

2008-08-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is the “real game” version of WordBomb that challenges you to find all the words in a grid of letters before the bomb explodes. The time limit and music make a simple word find rather intense. You can pick from a dozen or so lists of words or make your own! This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads.

http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: WordBomb - George W. Bush Edition

2008-07-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

A word find game where the words you find aren’t really words, they’re Bushisms! Challenge yourself to find all the abominations to the English language while W. entertains you with more wit and wisdom. This game is now 100% free and without in-game ads.

http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: Speed Demons Snowboarding

2008-07-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

One more of my 2000 era games that is being released for the first time completely free and ad-free. I originally made this as a take-off on Nintendo’s 1080 Snowboarding, but I wanted to make a snowboarding game where the controls were much easier and more intuitive. The game controls with only the mouse. Use clicks to jump.

http://download.jackgames.com/

New Free Game: Speed Demons JetSkee

2008-07-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is another of my 2000 era games that is being released for the first time completely free and ad-free. I originally made this as a take-off on Nintendo’s Wave Race. Use the keyboard or joystick to race on 6 tracks.

http://download.jackgames.com

New Free Game: Bar Room Pool

2008-07-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

While not a new game per se, this marks the first time the game has been available for download totally free and totally ad-free. It is a simple game where you use the mouse to aim the cue and hold down the mouse button to charge your shot. It is 100% free now so download and enjoy!

http://download.jackgames.com

Welcome to the Jack Games News Blog!

2008-02-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

Thank you for visiting my site and playing my games. You can check into this news blog to find out what our latest games and offers are. Or…

Subscribe to this news blog and you will get access to our new free games sent directly to your email. I will only send email when there are new free games to announce, so it is the fastest, easiest spam-free way to get access to new free games when they are available.